


How Pete Found Out (And How He Didn't)

by Leyenn



Series: everyone will say [3]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1 Things, Accidental Voyeurism, Break Up, Coming Out, Coming Out As A Threesome, Exes, F/M, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I just have a kink for people finding out about my ships okay, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multi, OT3, POV Outsider, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Run-On Sentences, Sam and Pete are not together let's just be clear, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, run-on sentences for days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25925137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: Five times Pete found out about Sam's love life after him, and one time he didn't.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Pete Shanahan
Series: everyone will say [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878055
Kudos: 37





	How Pete Found Out (And How He Didn't)

**6.**

**__**"I'm not sure I can tell him the truth," Sam says tiredly, aware she's being a coward and an awful person and also, that she's probably not clearly audible with her face half-turned against Daniel's chest.

Daniel hears her anyway, his fingers not even pausing in their slow caress through the ends of her hair. "That's okay," he says, easily. He's more than she deserves, Sam thinks. They both are. They _all_ are.

She's distantly aware that she's either sinking into a serious depressive episode, or she's being ridiculously melodramatic: she's not the first woman in the history of the world to need to break up with someone because she's realised her feelings for someone else... or at least, realised she can't make them go away, even by putting a ring on her finger. But she hasn't cheated, at least not physically, and not _intentionally_ ; she has no intention of doing so, and she knows she won't need to. They'll wait for her. They've been waiting years already, after all, even if none of them stopped being stubborn about it until it was really the absolute worst timing.

"Move over," Jack says, and gently manhandles her a little to make room for himself on the couch. He leaves his hand on her calf and starts to rub up and down her leg, but it's nothing provocative, just grounding her here between them. 

She wants more than anything to sit up and take Daniel's face in her hands and kiss him, to take Jack's hand and move it between her legs instead, to feel Daniel's fingers turn strong and insistent in her hair the way she knows they will. She wants them so badly it hurts, and she might be a genius but she can't work this out, how she's managed to lock this away for all the years she's loved them both.

Of course it's even worse, because she knows – and this she has known for years – that they want the same of each other, too, and all her best attempts haven't made a dent in their insistence that they're _doing this all together or not at all, Carter, and that's damned final._

She's tried to argue that it doesn't make sense for her mistakes to keep them apart, too, except that it does. She doesn't want it to, but it does, and _god_ she's even more in love with them both for it.

"You don't have to tell him why," Daniel says. She feels him lean down, his lips pressing tenderly to the top of her head. "It'll be okay," he murmurs, like it's a promise he can personally make come true, and Jack's grip on her thigh is a gentle squeeze of agreement. 

"I didn't tell Kerry," he says, evenly. "Though I'm pretty sure she thinks I came straight over here and tore your clothes off, anyway," and Sam can't help it, she starts laughing, presses her forehead to Daniel's heart. 

"We'll work out what to say, between us. You know Jack's talent for speechwriting." She can hear his teasing, hopeful, reassuring smile. His hand curls behind her neck, lending strength where hers has run out for the night. "And no matter what happens, we'll be here for you."

"Always," Jack says, deep and soft and certain, and Sam just puts her hand over his and hangs on.

  


* * *

  


**5.**

"I don't think I understand." And he's really, _really_ trying to. "You want to be with… both of them."

Sam nods, silently. 

"But not with me."

She looks like it's hurting her to say it, at least. "I… I'm sorry, Pete. I really am." 

The ring is sharp in his palm, still warm from her skin. It just doesn't make sense to him. None of it makes sense.

"I guess I knew, from the beginning…" He opens his fist, looks down at the single diamond glittering there in the sunlight. "At least, I thought I did."

Her hand moves, almost touching his wrist, but she stops. When he looks up, she can't seem to meet his eyes.

"I know it's probably hard to understand. I just… you deserve to know the truth."

The truth, that she's been in love with both of her teammates all this time. The truth that she'd happily be with more than one man, men who will happily share her, just not with him. 

"Are you sleeping with one of them? Both of them?"

She does look him in the eyes then, at least. "No," she says, but it's not exactly the vehement denial he was hoping for.

"But you want to."

She tries to answer, he can tell – whether it was going to be a lie or not, who knows – but after a moment she just looks down again, and that silence says all he needs to hear.

He's really trying to understand, trying to imagine what it is she's leaving him for.

Suddenly he tries, very hard, not to imagine it. 

Maybe his face shows it, because Sam does touch his sleeve, then, very carefully. "Pete. It's not…"

" _Don't_ say it's not me," he snaps out. Sam bristles a little at that.

"I wasn't." 

"So it is."

"Don't twist things," and she's frowning now. "It's not _you_ , it's…" She sighs, looks up, gaze sweeping the yard around them. "It's everything you want. The house, the dog, the white picket fence, the…" Her voice trails off for a moment. "Everything. I thought I could want this. I thought I should want it."

He's been blind, he realises, this entire time. He knew, or at least thought he did, or he knew some of it, he knew it was a risk, but at least he thought there was a chance… "But you don't."

She shakes her head again.

"What do you want, Sam?"

"The life I have," she says, softly. It sounds like it might be the first time she's ever admitted it out loud.

"Not something ordinary," he says, in quiet agreement. She makes a pained face.

"You're not ordinary. It's just-"

"That they're extraordinary." It hurts like hell anyway, he might as well try and be honest about it. "That part I think I get. I always knew it was hard to compete with a – with guys who fight aliens for a living."

"Pete." She leans forward, tears in her eyes but her gaze is intent, insistent. "We've never acted on it. I swear."

"But you felt it," he can't help but say. That part doesn't need to be a question, and he doesn't insult either of them by making it one. "All - three of you." It still doesn't make sense, no matter how he tries. "For how long?"

"I don't know." She wipes her eyes quickly. "I really don't. I've tried." A soft sigh. "They're my team. I can't explain what that means, but I – I can't tell when it stopped being just that and started being... this."

A long time, he thinks. It stopped being just that a long time ago. 

"What are you even planning to do?" Part of him doesn't want to know, but there's a part of him that's just been stabbed through the chest right here on this bench, in front of the house they were going to live in, and that part needs to see her _feel_ what she's choosing. "I guess it's a good thing you don't wanna get married after all. Not exactly what you're getting yourself into."

She doesn't quite react, but he sees the hurt in her eyes. "That doesn't matter."

"It might, one day, when you're done playing heroes. When you decide it's not excitement you want any more. When you want kids, a proper family-" 

"It's not like that." She knows what he's doing, he can see it. He can, too, but he can't seem to stop.

"I think it is. I think it's _exactly_ like that, and I bet the Air Force are so happy their big shot General gives two shits about chain of command after all."

"Jack's been promoted." _Fuck_ , he thinks savagely, she's got an answer for everything. 

"To what, Head of Fraternisation?" Then it hits him, and that other part of him is screaming that he's better than this, but the words are in his mouth and then he's saying it, sly and deliberately hurtful, "or is it Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"

Sam flinches like he's slapped her. 

"It is." He has to lean back, shocked under the fog of hurt. He didn't _actually_ think… "Wow. And here I was I thinking they were both just too into you to make you choose."

" _Fuck you,_ " she snarls out. "You don't know what you're-"

"I'll leave that for your _team_ ," he shoots back. "You should get it written into the job description. What about Teal'c, does he get to ride too?" 

There's a deafening silence. Sam stares at him like she's never seen him before, and that's when he realises dimly that she might be the one breaking it off, but he's the one who's just wrecked it forever.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she says, slowly - as if he never interrupted, and suddenly very quiet. He can hear the tears in her voice, but she's still not crying, probably because she's the most stubborn woman he's ever known. Somehow, because she's also the most giving woman he's ever known, there's forgiveness in there too.

He wants to have never been this guy, to take back everything, for the ground to swallow him up. "Sam…"

"I think you need to go, now, okay?"

He nods. She's right. This house, the ring in his hand, the sold sign on the board – none of this was ever really going to be his, in the end.

She doesn't stand up as he leaves.

  


* * *

  


**4.**

"Did you know?!" Mark demands, and Pete can honestly say he knew about a lot of things, but no, he had no idea about this.

It does all suddenly make a lot of things make a lot more sense. 

The scene is burned into his brain, so pain-hot his vision is black around the edges. Walking into the house, to the sound of a shower cutting off. Mark calling her name. The door to the bedroom ajar. Hearing Sam behind it, crying – not those few silent tears from the funeral, but desperate, wracking sobs like she physically can't stop.

Mark pushing open the door.

Sam in the middle of the bed in soft grey pyjamas, clinging to a shirtless and barefoot Jack O'Neill with her arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers digging into his back. O'Neill rocking her, just slightly, back and forth. Pressing kisses to her hair, her temple, her shoulder. 

Daniel Jackson, wet-haired, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Sliding onto the bed and reaching out. Gentle fingers on Sam's back, not even a twitch at the touch. Stroking her back, across her shoulders. Ignoring the slipping towel as he crowds in close behind her.

A single, brief kiss, completely over her head – Daniel leaning in and O'Neill tilting to meet him, not even breaking rhythm. Sam turning, sobbing into Daniel's neck. His hands on her, still gentle, taking her from O'Neill. Nonsense noises, _shh, shh, we're here, we're right here, we're not leaving you, shh, we promise_. 

O'Neill stroking her hair, holding Daniel's hand. Two open duffels on the floor, haphazard in front of the dresser. Mourning-black suit pants and checked boxers overflowing the laundry hamper. The cluttered bedside table; a pair of glasses, two tangled pairs of dog tags, a USAF issue watch. A bottle of fucking _lube._

He doesn't remember them noticing the open door, or anything anyone said, or anything else of the last five minutes, but he could draw every detail of that image like a damned crime scene photo. 

"Why the hell would he know?" O'Neill's question is even more incredulous than Mark's, if that's possible. He's dragging a t-shirt over his head in the middle of Sam's living room, and Pete is trying not to remember this moment either. He doesn't think he'll be as successful as he'd like.

O'Neill must see an answer of some kind in Mark's face, because his expression goes stormy. "You'd better not be thinking what I think you're thinking." 

"You don't get to tell me what to think when you're _screwing_ my _sister_ – and like _that -_ ”

"Would you keep your goddamn voice down?" O'Neill hisses. " _No_ , she didn't cheat. _No_ , there aren't any other random guys in the picture. _No_ , Pete wasn't in on our relationship. There wasn't a relationship until you guys were done," he adds, the first words he's said directly to Pete. 

He isn't sure he believes it, but what else can he do? He's supposed to be here supporting his friend, and his ex-fiancée, and saying goodbye to their father, because those are the adult things to do no matter how much it hurts - and instead he's trying to scrub the image of her between two other mostly-naked men out of his head.

"I want you out of my sister's house," Mark growls. It's the beer from earlier making him brave and the grief making him stupid, Pete can see it easily. "Both of you."

O'Neill folds his arms, somehow telegraphing with that single movement that he's not moving an inch. "I think your sister is probably deciding whether she wants to have either of you in her house right now."

"I think you need to be careful what you say," Mark snaps. His face twists in disgust and hurt. "She just buried our _dad_ , and you're – like some fucking _porn movie_ -"

" _What?!_ " O'Neill looks at them both like Mark's gone off the deep end. "Okay, _look_. If this is the conversation we're gonna have, fine. I love her. Daniel loves her. We're here to take care of her-"

Mark punches him.

Somewhere far away in his mind, Pete's surprised the blow even connects. It most likely wouldn't, but O'Neill looks like he completely wasn't expecting it, and Mark's just drunk and angry enough that there's no warning – he probably doesn't know he's going to do it until his fist hits O'Neill's face. 

Pete suddenly finds himself in the position of grappling Sam's brother by both arms, to stop him tackling Sam's apparent new boyfriend to the floor and kicking seven shades of shit out of him, or at least trying to. It's the exact opposite of anything he'd expect of himself right now: that far away part of him is kind of impressed.

The rest of him is just stunned.

 _I love her. Daniel loves her._ The words are hot and painful in his head. Even more so because he doesn't doubt them for an instant.

"Jack?" Daniel appears in the doorway, a glass of water in hand, brows raised over slightly tired eyes. He's also thrown on clothes, at least. Pete feels another stab of pain at the idea that he'd have something around to just throw on at a moment's notice. 

It only takes a second before his eyes go wide and he's in the room, sliding the glass onto the closest surface out of the way. "Oh, for god's sake – _Sam!_ "

O'Neill glares at him. "Daniel!"

"Don't try and coddle her, you know better than that." Daniel touches O'Neill's jaw gingerly. "Sam!We need some ice!"

"I'm fine," O'Neill says, but a little less ruffled and more resigned. "Teal'c's given me worse. Check his hand," with a jerk of his chin at Mark. 

"Don't fucking touch me," Mark scowls, as Pete wrestles him to the couch - which Daniel ignores with a sigh, grabs his wrist with an easy strength. 

"You probably just broke your hand on Jack's face. Now calm down, _sit_ _down_ , and let me take a look."

"What's going on?" Sam hasn't changed from her pyjamas, her eyes are red and there are still tears drying on her face, but she's holding a bag of ice and a dishcloth in the one hand. She looks exhausted, Pete thinks. It may not be his fist bleeding, but he still suddenly feels like the biggest asshole in the world.

"I think Mark may have been defending your honor," Daniel says dryly, tiredly, nods across at O'Neill. 

Pete watches her follow that nod, then snap her gaze to her brother. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." She hands Daniel the ice pack. "What the _hell_ , Mark?!"

Mark looks up at her, but only for a second – and then his only answer is to lunge out of Pete's grip, and Daniel's, and past Sam toward what Pete suspects is the closest sink.

"He wanted to make sure you were okay," he says, after a moment. He feels wrung out, suddenly. "I'm… we should have knocked, or called."

"Yeah, you should." Sam sighs and runs a hand back through her hair. "Look, I…" But she doesn't finish, doesn't seem to know how, shakes her head and tries again. "I can't deal with this right now, I'm so tired…"

O'Neill's already holding out a hand for her as he moves. Sam goes to him like it's instinct, folds in against him like she's dragging herself to shore. 

"You don't have to," Daniel says, reaches for her hand, and, "I'll make sure Mark's okay," before she can even start to argue. "The worst he's going to do right now is puke on me, I think I can handle that. I'll put him in the guest room to sleep it off, you and Jack go back to bed. Here," he offers the ice pack to O'Neill.

It's about as gentle a dismissal as he's going to get, Pete supposes. "I'll… I should go," and Daniel blinks and turns to him.

"Ah… yeah, that's… probably the best idea right now. You drove?"

Pete nods numbly. "Yeah." He's vaguely aware that he's on his feet. That they're all watching him: concern or just wariness from O'Neill, he can't quite tell; open sympathy from Daniel; and Sam…

He's not sure what he wants from her, but he doesn't get it. She meets his eyes and she doesn't look embarrassed or ashamed or sorry, just… 

"I'm glad you're okay," he says, as honestly as he can manage. She gives him a faint smile, from where she's leaning into O'Neill's shoulder.

"I will be." 

Yeah. He has no doubt of that. 

"Take care of her," he says, hoarsely, even if it's to the room because he can't look at either of them, and doesn't know who he should look at if he could.

"We will," Daniel says. At least he manages to sound truly sympathetic, too, and not just pitying.

"Pete." Sam's voice is quiet, and clear, even if he can still hear how she was crying out her heart not ten minutes ago. He turns and just about makes himself look back at her. "I do appreciate you coming. To the funeral."

Not to the house, he thinks. She definitely hasn't appreciated this. He wonders if it had truly sunk in before right now that he's not welcome to just walk in here, not anymore. "I liked your dad," he says. _I love you._ "And Mark needed a friend around." _Even if you don't need me._

 __She looks like she hears it all, anyway.

"Make sure Mark gets some sleep," he says, a little numb. "He drank a lot at the wake. He probably didn't mean the thing about the-"

"We'll take care of it," O'Neill says. "Both of them."

At least he's got no doubt of that, either. 

  


* * *

  


**3.**

He knows a bad night is about to get worse when the elevator doors open on the seventh floor of Denver Health and the first thing he hears is Sam Carter, sounding like she could really do with an assault weapon and everyone in her path should be glad she doesn't have one to hand. Her jeans are torn down one leg and there are fresh scabs dotted all down her right arm - probably her left as well, under the sling holding it to her chest. Her hair is full of dust and there are butterfly tapes on her forehead, dried smears of blood on her face.

She was always a force of nature under the best of circumstances. He feels for the medical staff trying to fend her off right now.

"Sam!"

He turns at the same time she does, at the sound of her name, probably sees the guy hurtling out of the other elevator at the same time too. Mussed brown hair, thin-rimmed glasses, incongruous in dark green fatigues and empty thigh holster, but sneakers on his feet and a leather jacket thrown over.

He's a dozen feet away but he _hears_ the breath Sam lets out, the way her voice almost cracks with relief. "Daniel-"

"Are you okay?" Jackson's in front of her in seconds. His hands trace over her, sure and seeking: a light grip on her shoulder, a brush of fingertips at her hairline and on her face, a touch on her arm under the swathe of linen. "I got a call from Lam, but she couldn't tell me anything-"

He breaks off as she presses herself into his arms as if she's not wearing a sling and probably a cast, at all. Jackson wraps both around her, hands spread at her waist and behind her neck, for a long moment before leaning back. "Sam. What happened?”

"I can't find out what's going on." Her voice is steady again, but obviously frustrated. "Jack was driving, we were on our way back to the hotel, the next thing I knew we got t-boned by a damned Humvee-"

And that's the moment her eyes meet his, and go wide.

"Pete.”

Jackson turns to look, an arm staying around her shoulders. Pete gets the odd feeling that he's suddenly trying to look unthreatening. 

"I'm here to take your statement," he says, feeling like the entire floor has just turned to eggshells between them. "Sorry – it's a busy night, they didn't get me your name-"

Sam shakes her head, though it seems less like a _no_ and more like resignation that of course this would happen. "It's okay." She takes a breath. "You probably just heard most of it, anyway."

"Maybe you could start from the beginning," he says, as gentle as he can. Sam nods. She looks relieved to be keeping it professional, so he figures he can at least help with that.

"Like I said, we were on our way to our hotel. We picked up the rental about four hours ago, Jack was driving, I was in the passenger side. We were talking about-" She stops herself abruptly and flicks a look at the notebook in his hand. "Work," she finishes, and he doesn't write down _probably discussing intergalactic war at the time of impact_.

"Did you see the other vehicle?"

Sam shakes her head. "Only afterwards. I heard it, and then it hit us. The next thing I remember is being loaded into the ambulance."

"Doctor Jackson?"

"I was at home," he says, and Pete raises an eyebrow.

"Home as in Colorado Springs?"

"I had them beam me." His hand is still on Sam's shoulder, thumb resting in the curve of her neck and occasionally rubbing up and down. "The SGC got an alert on Sam's ID when they booked her into the ER."

"Of course they did." He doesn't mean it to sound as irked as it does. "Sorry, I didn't mean…"

"It's okay." Jackson sighs. "This probably isn't how any of us wanted to run into each other. You can just put that I was back at the hotel, the cover story's probably in place by now."

They're so calm about it, Pete thinks. That's what always made it so goddamned surreal. 

Sam gives him the whole story, another twice over on her own insistence, and he doesn't see Jackson stop touching her the entire time. He writes down the same things each time just so that she doesn't have to stop talking, because he can tell that's what's keeping her from doing something drastic to every member of staff who passes by.

An update comes in from the station, and he shouldn't tell them but he figures hell, the paperwork will be full of enough fabrications for this one anyway, so he passes it on verbatim. An open and shut drunk driver, mid-fifties, male, arrested at the scene, no other casualties, an empty brandy bottle found in the passenger side footwell.

He honestly isn't sure if that makes it better or worse.

He's the one who sees the nurse approach, over Sam's shoulder as she's talking. He catches her eye and she stops, spins around instantly.

Credit to her, the nurse on call is five feet nothing but she doesn't wilt back from that laser focus, or Sam's sharp, "How is he?"

"I'm sorry, Miss-"

He practically hears Sam's teeth grind. " _Colonel_. Carter."

"I'm sorry, Colonel Carter." Like it's just rote, with the blanks filled in, and Pete can see the danger signs coming even if the nurse is blissfully unaware. "I'm afraid I can only give out patient information to the next of kin."

"It's your lucky day, then," Jackson cuts in - through gritted teeth, too, and he sounds like he'd be happy to go find Sam that lethal weapon any time. "Check your records - Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter. Next of kin.”

Well, that's new. 

"God, their red tape is worse than the Senate," Sam mutters under her breath, as the nurse flips through files. Pete doesn't have the personal experience to agree, but she'd know. Jackson squeezes her shoulder.

"It'll be okay, Sam." Pete blinks, then, not sure he's really seeing what he's seeing, as Jackson's lips brush against Sam's temple. "He'll be okay. Lam's already getting set up, as soon as he's stable-"

"Doctor Jackson? Colonel Carter?" Thank God, Pete thinks, when the nurse comes back. He wouldn't have blamed her for making a break for it. "General O'Neill is due to be out of surgery within the next hour. They had to repair some significant damage to his spleen and liver, and there's a compound open fracture of the femur-"

" _Shit_ ," Sam breathes out, and this time Jackson presses his face into her hair and doesn't move. She reaches over a little awkwardly with her good hand to hold onto him. 

"-but the surgeon reports he's stable," the nurse carries on, and Pete lets himself be thankful for small mercies not only because he doesn't want to see Sam lose anyone, even now, but because he's pretty fond of Denver and he'd rather not see it fall to the wrath that even half of SG-1 can probably bring to bear.

"All right," Sam starts, and it's that over-calm voice she used to use to talk about gate travel and snakes in people's heads and war zones. "We're going to need to speak to the surgeon as soon as he's done, and anyone assisting. They might have some questions for us, too. Where can we wait?"

The nurse shows them to a side room that's obviously waiting for a bed to be wheeled in, with two chairs and a small sink and restroom. Pete's been to enough incidents like this to know it's not procedure, but the nurse obviously has enough sense to realise it's best to give these two anything they ask for, and not make them ask twice.

Daniel has his phone out before the door is even closed, but obviously waiting: Pete wonders what for, and then there's what feels like a _flash_ of sound and Sam tucks something he can't see back into her pocket.

"Clean," is all she says, and Daniel dials. 

It's a call full of _yes, General_ and _no, doesn't seem that way_ and _making arrangements, waiting for the surgeon_ –and at least twice a _yes, she's fine_ and Daniel sliding his arm back around Sam, kissing her hair as he listens to whoever's on the other end. 

Pete doesn't know what he should do, in any sense of the meaning. But he can't leave, so he just waits and watches the phone switch back and forth between them until it's Sam hanging up after a final _yes, sir, as soon as we know._

Watches as she puts the phone in her pocket and takes a long, deep breath in; listens to the way it suddenly doesn't sound as steady. Watches as Daniel grabs for her and drags the free chair over, and she doesn't even look to check as she sits down where he tells her. 

He has a glass in his hand and under the faucet without even noticing. When he turns back, Daniel's on his knees in front of Sam, both hands folded around one of hers.

"I'm okay." She doesn't sound it, but she does sound determined to believe it. Just like he remembers her. "I'm okay," but she doesn't seem to notice even when he's standing over her. 

At least Daniel glances up at him and flashes a small, grateful smile. "Thanks." He takes the glass, folds Sam's fingers around it. "Here. Slowly." 

"I'm fine, really." But the sip of water she takes is more careful than it should be. Daniel's fingers hover at the tapes on her forehead, not quite touching. 

"Did they check you for head trauma?"

Sam nods, but only for a split second. Her hand grips the fake-wood arm of the chair. "Mm. Yeah, all clear."

"I'm still gonna have Lam check you over as soon as we get back."

"Daniel…"

"Sam." The way he says her name is soft and intense, and Pete wouldn't need suspicions already for it to sound like a lover's voice. "I know, okay? I do. But I need both of you to be okay." __

She nods again, much slower. Takes another sip of water, then another; eventually she puts the half-empty glass back into Daniel's hands. "I'm just going to…"

He nods and moves back to let her up. Pete watches him watch her walk to the restroom, the way his gaze doesn't falter for an instant - and when the door's closed he can't not ask, even though he doesn't really want to know. "Are you two...?”

There's still a part of him, a big, hopeful part, that expects Daniel to say no. To scoff incredulously at the idea – _what, you think... me and Sam? No, no –_ and laugh, maybe look a bit awkward at the mistake.

He doesn't.

He doesn't even seem surprised. "Yes.” Just... simple. Factual. Easy. "Look, Pete, I know the PD probably expects you to stay, but the SGC has personnel on the way. We can handle it from here, if you want to-"

"My job is to handle this case,” he says, because it is, and he's going to do it, for Sam if nothing else. Just like any other night. No different at all.

"Of course.” Daniel pushes his glasses up; tucks his hands into the pockets of his fatigues. "Sorry. I just – well, I know it's hard seeing someone you loved with someone else.”

He wonders if Daniel already loved her, back when his own ring was on her finger. If this is really what Sam wanted. He always thought it was O'Neill, it seemed so obvious, but there turned out to be a lot about Sam he could never read quite right. 

"You didn't come to Denver with her,” he hears himself say.

Daniel glances at the restroom door. "I had work to finish, some last minute - stuff." He doesn't elaborate, and Pete wonders if it was translation or ancient artefacts or shooting aliens in his backyard. "I was supposed to drive up and meet them tomorrow, after I was finished.”

He raises an eyebrow. "Romantic weekend away, with the boss in tow?”

A bemused arch of one eyebrow. "Ah, not exactly.” Daniel shoots another look at the closed door. "Jack is - we're together. All of us, I mean."

Something of his confusion must show on his face, because Daniel's expression shifts into a smile, curious but knowing. "You don't get what I mean, do you?"

He's saved from having to say _no, I have no idea_ by the sound of someone's back connecting with the door, and the way Daniel obviously forgets they were talking even before the bed is fully in the room.

Jack O'Neill looks, frankly, fucking awful. Dried blood in his hair, pallid skin nearly the colour of the hospital sheets; a breathing tube down his throat; left leg framed from knee to hip in an elaborate rig of plates and screws that looks like something Sam might have built in her lab. Two IVs are hooked to the bed, a heart monitor beeping the regular beep of anaesthetic sleep.

The two orderlies wheeling the bed don't look surprised to find the room occupied. Pete suspects that even without anyone knowing the real deal, word of Sam has got around. He's certain of it seconds later, when she steps out the restroom and both of them hurry to be finished and leave without a word.

She's cleaned most of the blood and grime off her face, obviously run wet hands through her hair, and a few bruises are starting to bloom - but she hasn't looked like she's even feeling the pain, he realises, until her eyes land on O'Neill.

"Oh, god." She's got the phone in her hand, but her voice is choked.

"I'll call." Daniel sits down carefully on the edge of the bed, holding out a hand, though he doesn't sound any less wrecked. Sam still hands him the phone; it takes Pete a moment to realise it's so that she can drag the chair close with her usable hand.

He watches her sink into it, as Daniel holds the phone to his ear with one hand and takes O'Neill's with the other. He watches her check the IV and monitor pads with careful fingers as Daniel says _out of surgery_ and _thank you, General, we appreciate it_ ; take O'Neill's other hand in hers as Daniel finishes with _okay, we'll be here until then._

 __"How long?" She sounds like she's trying not to wake O'Neill, Pete thinks.

"Two hours." Daniel drops the phone carelessly on the bed. "They called Barrett in to handle things downstairs. Cam's got the theater team and Teal'c's on his way. They know not to expect us."

Sam nods like she's only half hearing. "I swear, Daniel, even if I have to heal him myself-"

Pete doesn't know what she even means, but Daniel looks at her across the bed and whatever goes on in that look, it stops her short.

"You're both gonna be fine." Daniel sounds like he's daring them to not be. "Both of you," in that soft, intense voice again, and something clicks in Pete's head. 

Oh.

_Oh._

He doesn't know what to do with the way the words suddenly make sense. _We're together._ Because they are, obviously, together, all of them. It's in the way their hands hold O'Neill's, both just the way he's seen a thousand partners and spouses and lovers hold the hand of a victim. It's in the fact that they're both just sitting here knowing there's SGC and NID crawling all over the hospital right now. It's in how Daniel leans close and kisses O'Neill's pale, bruised temple, no different to kissing Sam's, and how she relaxes even just a little at watching him.

His notebook is still in his hand. He looks down at it, and the scrawl of notes he's taken so far.

Quietly, hoping not to remind them he's there, he puts the pen away. He'd rather not have to remember writing this down, and the case is going to be half fiction anyway by the time they're done with it. One more detail missing isn't going to make a difference.

  


* * *

  


**2.**

The party is a pre-holiday tradition, the kind brought about by a retired couple with a large house and larger family, one a woman who loves to cook and the other a long-suffering husband. Pete goes most years since he and Mark became buddies – the Carters being a moderately close branch of that extended family - mostly because Emilie's cooking is as good as it is bountiful and at Thanksgiving it's good to find more things to be thankful for, right?

He doesn't remember Sam ever turning up in the few years between meeting her brother and spectacularly failing at asking her to marry him, and she definitely hasn't been since. So, even though he knows that she could be here, it sort of never occurs to him that she _might_ be.

She looks just the same, he thinks. She smiles just the same, and even though they only manage to make stilted polite conversation, she sounds just the same, too. 

Until someone hands her a glass of wine, and that's when his heart twinges. Not everything about her is exactly the same.

"So… wedding ring now, huh?"

Sam glances down, as if she's surprised by her own hand for a moment. "Um, yeah. Sort of." She touches the band lightly between her thumb and finger, and Pete notices that it's split into two, each one turning separately on her finger as she fidgets them self-consciously. "It's not official here," she says, and it's probably a sign of how long it's been that he doesn't immediately get her meaning.

"In Colorado?"

She looks amused, drops her voice a little. "On Earth."

"Oh." Well, he supposes, it's how she's most likely to meet someone. "He's an –" a quick change of tack at the look she's giving him – "not from around here, then?" Well, he couldn't compete with her job, her life, it's a little less of an ache to think she had to go off this planet to find someone who could. 

Sam looks like it's not a question she's used to answering, though – odd, she was always smooth at the cover stories - and she seems to still be formulating the words when someone shouts her from across the room and they both turn to look through the crowd. Over at the kitchen door, in a smeared apron with her pale grey hair messily pulled back into a bun, Emilie is waving a large wooden spoon, dripping something unnervingly red and sticky, above her head.

"Sam, honey! Come help me with this sauce!"

Sam winces, looking for all the world like she'd rather help a live firefight, and he finds himself offering a supportive grin in return.

"Good luck," he says, and she laughs a little.

"Yeah." She rolls her eyes, glancing toward the kitchen, takes a deep breath and leans in conspiratorially. "A tip for later: avoid the cranberry sauce."

He laughs, and tries not to notice that she can still make him laugh that easily too. "Sam," he says, as she turns to go. She pauses and he smiles gamely. "Congratulations."

She actually blushes, though very faintly. Her fingers touch the rings again. "Thank you," she says, and at least there's only a moment of awkwardness before she makes the universal gesture for 'I really have to go' and he's watching her weave through the room.

He doesn't usually see Emilie and Robert again until at least Christmas, but Mark calls him early the next morning and – amid apologies sincere enough that Pete's pretty sure there aren't any ulterior motives other than possibly avoiding some manual labor – bribes him into going over and helping hang the lights along the street. It's usually one of Mark's holiday tasks, but Lisa is having a nine-year-old's meltdown about not having a new dress for Thanksgiving dinner, and the car's due in the garage at two thirty, and David's refusing to leave his room…

So Pete finds himself ten feet up a stepladder with Emilie's neighbor from two houses down handing him a series of neon reindeer at ten a.m. and wondering what his life even is any more. 

Almost three hours, a few grazed fingertips and one slight electrical shock later, they're done with their side of the street. Pete ducks back into Emilie's house to beg a drink, and maybe – but really, definitely, because Emilie loves to feed people, and that's half why he gave into Mark's coercion – wheedle himself something from the pre-dinner-dinner preparation that must be going on.

He's two steps from the kitchen when he hears Robert's question.

"So is that young man of yours joining us tomorrow, Sam?"

Pete pauses, not sure if he wants to step into this and rip the band-aid off, or just go: he settles for the stupid option three, which is standing stock still. From here he can see Sam right there, standing at the island with two fruit bowls and a chopping board in front of her, obviously back in her assigned role as Emilie's kitchen helper. Her hand tightens on the knife at the question, but she keeps chopping and smiles brightly. "They couldn't make it until this evening. Work's just crazy right now, but they'll be here." She grabs another apple from the bowl.

Robert scoffs. "It's still 'they'? You're not still playing at this-"

Pete jumps as Sam stabs the knife point-first straight through the apple core and into the chopping board, and plants both hands on the edge of the countertop. She keeps smiling, but that doesn't mean much: he's seen less terrifying smiles on wild animals. 

"Can we, _please_ , not have this conversation again?" 

Robert holds up both hands, one still holding the wine bottle. "I just think it's time you made a decision and settled down…"

"Oh, shut up, Robert." At the stove, Emilie scowls and stabs her own current kitchen implement of choice – a long pair of grill tongs – toward him. "Why on Earth would she do a thing like that? She's got two handsome, charming men doting on her. And keeping each other entertained to boot. Sometimes I think you've got the right idea, honey," she directs at Sam, with that twinkle of her blue eyes she's so famous for. "Kick one out of bed for being an _idiot_ ," with another glare at Robert, "you've still got a spare to keep you warm, eh?"

Pete's head spins. _Two handsome, charming men._

Two rings, and _it's not official here_.

She never even _hinted_ that she wanted… in all the time they were together…

Sam's laugh fills his ears. "Unfortunately sometimes idiocy is contagious," she says, and Emilie gives one of those knowing laughs of her own.

"See, Robert, it's not that different in the end." She thrusts the tongs into the pot in front of her with an expect hand. "Sam, honey, when you're done with those apples could you go and check on the guest rooms? I can't remember if I put out clean sheets."

Sam smiles, a little less dangerously, and pulls the knife free. "Sure, Emilie. No problem."

Pete decides he really doesn't need a drink that badly. At least not one without alcohol.

He begs a beer and a sandwich from the neighbor, and tries to focus on reindeer and fake snow and plastic Santas for the next two hours. He almost manages it, too, until he's checking the lights he's just woven in and out of a picket fence and hears footsteps stop behind him.

"Hey," Sam says. "I didn't know you helped out with this."

He carefully turns off the power before he turns around. She's wrapped up in a long, black woollen coat, neatly tailored and snug, and long black boots up to the knee. Her hands are tucked deep into the pockets. She still looks gorgeous, he thinks… and cute, too, with the dark green bobble hat tugged down to cover all but the ends of her hair.

"Your brother bribed me."

She smiles. "Not with anything too terrible, I hope."

 _It wasn't with seeing you again_ , he almost says, but manages to engage his brain before it comes out. He doesn't need to make it any more awkward. 

"Going somewhere?" he asks instead, for something to say. She looks too wrapped up to just be taking a walk, it's not that cold yet.

She tugs one hand from a pocket, car keys in hand, and gestures behind her. "I'm heading to the store for Emilie, and then to the airport."

"Collecting the horde," he says, but then she gets that same look that he saw last night and hesitates just a second before replying. "Oh," he says. "Well – look, Sam, I'm glad you're happy."

She makes a face he can't quite decipher any more, but there's apology somewhere in it. "Pete…"

"I mean it." He offers her a smile, tries to make it light, tries to say something nonchalant. "I guess it's good for the ego, if it takes two guys to replace me."

Sam looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or wince or slap him. She seems to settle for apologising. "I should have told you last night, but Emilie-"

"Hey, everyone appreciates Emilie's sous chef." 

She buries her hands back in her pockets. "Yeah." A twitch of a smile. "I am sorry."

She doesn't mean for having to rush off at the party, he doesn't think. "You needed something else," he says, and realises that somewhere in the last three years he's figured that out, accepted it, even if he hasn't looked at it closely for a while. It's not that it doesn't still give him a pang of something to see her, but he knows now that he was never going to be enough for Colonel Samantha Carter of SG-1, genius workaholic and savior of the galaxy. Apparently literally not enough. "I'd be – okay, with meeting them," he says, as a peace offering. "You know, if you're around for a few days." She hesitates, though, and he realises that might have sounded a little too eager or weird. "Just a coffee, or something. But it's okay, too, if you don't want to –"

"You've already met."

He blinks. "What?" 

Sam looks like she wants to be anywhere else, but is resigned to being here and just trying to be kind about it. "You've already met," she says, again, but a little gentler.

It hits him over the head like a damned anvil. "O'Neill." _Of course_. He feels like an idiot all over again. And there was another guy, the fellow doctor, the best friend, the one who could actually keep up with her mind when she started on a roll…

"Jack," she says, like a _yes_ and okay, there's that pang, hearing the way her voice wraps so warmly around another guy's name. "And Daniel. Yeah."

"Wow," he says, because that's pretty much how he feels in a word. Sam ducks her head a little, almost sheepish.

"I know. It took us a lot longer than it should have, but it's…" She looks hopeful. "Did you mean it, about my being happy?"

He doesn't really need to think about the answer. "Of course I did, Sam."

She's honestly relieved, at least he thinks so. "I won't hold you to it. The coffee." There's that awkward silence for a moment, and then she gestures back to the car again. "I really do have to head to the store – their flight gets in at five."

"Sure." He hesitates, but it feels like he just needs to bridge this awkwardness somehow, so he steels himself and steps forward to touch her elbow, gives her a quick, light kiss on the cheek. "It's really good to see you." He steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Say hello from me, I guess?"

She raises a teasing eyebrow. "Just hello? No threats of what you'll do if they don't take care of me?"

"You can take care of yourself," he says, without thinking. It's true, though. Sam always could. She doesn't need anyone for that. She needs someone to help her take care of the world, and he supposes that's a bigger job than just one person can handle. 

Sam smiles like she's proud of him, somehow. "Well. We'll be at Emilie and Robert's until Tuesday, if you do want to…" She leaves it hanging.

"I might," he says, though he's not sure if he means it or he's just giving them both the out.

"Okay." She nods, a little awkwardly, and backs up another couple of steps. "Happy Thanksgiving, Pete."

He smiles, and means it. "Drive safe, Sam."

  


* * *

  


**1.**

Pete gets the update to his NDA six months before he sees anything at all in the press. He skims through it, decides if he really wanted to sell his story to the _National Enquirer_ he'd have done it by now, signs it and sends it back with the nice Air Force lieutenant who waited so patiently on his couch.

When the news actually does break, he briefly considers that he might have underestimated things just a little bit.

The coverage seems to be never-ending, like every news station on the planet has been training for this exact story since the invention of the radio, if not the printing press. Pete mostly manages to dodge under the radar – so to speak – though he'd never have imagined being grateful for Sam having mostly stayed so far from Denver, before.

Mark does get paparazzi, and the kids spend a few weeks getting escorted to school by some nice Air Force lieutenants of their own; but eventually it dies down, and this surreal world-altering thing somehow becomes… if not commonplace, then not a shock to see it talked about on prime time news.

After a year or so no one even seems to think about it every day anymore, so Pete isn't expecting to flip on CNN just as the picture cuts to a red carpet and there's Sam.

It's not that he doesn't recognise her instantly. It's more that it takes a moment for him to register that it's actually her, because she looks both exactly the same and nothing at all like the woman who liked to curl her feet up on his couch in pale cotton pjs and eat ice cream out of the tub with a goofy smile. __

 __Her hair is long, for one thing, in soft blonde waves around her face and curling onto her bare shoulders. He never saw her hair long. She's wearing a floor-length sleeveless black dress with a plunging neckline that looks expensive as all hell and posing against the bright red backdrop with a professional smile, flash bulbs going off like fireworks from everywhere behind the camera. The voiceover is saying something about _Colonel in the United States Air Force_ and _fifteen years_ and _most important scientific work of a generation_.

She looks incredible, he thinks. 

The voiceover keeps droning on as the camera switches to a limo opening, a dark-haired guy in Air Force blues stepping out and immediately offering his hand to someone else inside, who turns out to be a shorter guy with much more normal hair - though slightly greying and less of it – in impeccably tailored black tie. Pete doesn't exactly recognise them, but their faces both have that vague familiarity of people he must have seen in pictures before. The reporter switches seamlessly to _Doctor Rodney McKay_ and _changed the field of astrophysics_ and some number of PhDs that doesn't sound actually possible. McKay is talking when he gets out of the car and doesn't seem to stop until the camera leaves him, thirty feet later: he seems to be in his element, holding court to every outstretched microphone while Air Force Guy hovers nearby with an indulgent smirk on his face. 

Telling himself it's obviously international news and that's the only reason he's interested, Pete leaves the channel on and goes to make coffee. 

He comes back to _think we can cut to Elise, Elise are you with us_ and Elise turns out to be a reporter on the carpet, _yes Jane I'm here with Nobel Laureate Doctor Rodney McKay_ who promptly cuts in and somehow eviscerates the intelligence, wit and family line of the reporter within ninety seconds, all without letting her get more than three words in edgewise. 

Pete kind of likes him.

By the time Elise says _General Sheppard_ she sounds a little dazed and a lot desperate; Air Force Guy grins like he was expecting it and steps up to the microphone to deliver a lot of smooth _very pleased to be here tonight_ and _obviously a great honor_ and _both deserve it – yes, Rodney, both of you ¬_ which is the only moment his otherwise obviously rehearsed speech slips, but Pete's pretty sure the indulgent look he gives McKay is going viral that very second.

"Nice one, poster boy," he mutters, finds himself grinning. Sheppard will be the new queer icon of the military by the morning papers, if he's not already. Pete doesn't exactly keep up on the celebrity gossip of who's sleeping with who.

Which is probably why he doesn't really see it, at first, when the camera cuts back to Sam - this time milling among a few other expensively-dressed people in front of a branded _National Geographic_ backdrop. Not even when Jack O'Neill steps into view from the right and she looks so comfortable leaning into the arm he slides around her waist, or when Daniel Jackson crosses the frame a moment later and very visibly takes her other hand. It doesn't even really register when the cameras start to flash all over again and the three of them turn, exactly together, as if it's a maneuver they've done a hundred times.

O'Neill's in the dress blues of a two-star general and wearing it well, it seems. Jackson's black tie matches Sam's dress perfectly. Teal'c is nowhere to be seen, and Pete wonders if having an honest-to-god alien on the red carpet was vetoed by the Pentagon, or if he's just off somewhere else being interviewed to within an inch of his life. 

He pays half his attention to the reporter asking inane questions of poor scientific celebrities with the misfortune to get too close to the camera, but he'll admit what he's really watching is her, even in the background and a little out of focus. Watching the way she's standing tall, smiling; laughing a little; talking to another roving reporter; nodding a hello to someone else going by.

The way she's putting her mouth close to O'Neill's cheek and saying something obviously private, even in the face of a hundred camera lenses. Something that makes him smile and murmur back with only the barest movement of his lips, right before he presses them to her shoulder and Sam tries to hide a grin in his hair.

Something that brings Jackson leaning in, looking curious, and Sam hiding her mouth behind a hand cupped close to his ear until he laughs…

…and turns his head and kisses her, O'Neill's lips still on her skin, right as the camera zooms in.

Pete narrowly avoids spilling his coffee.

" _*And here we are with another of tonight's star guests, Colonel Doctor Samantha Carter, joint Nobel Prize winner for Physics, and her, ah-*_ "

O'Neill straightens up and Jackson leans back, but their eyes are all on Sam for a slow moment, as if they know they're making the camera wait and are enjoying doing it.

" _*You can go with 'partners',*_ " Jackson says, brightly helpful as he finally drags his eyes from her. 

" _*Of course,*_ " comes from off screen, as if the right term would be on the tip of any reporter's tongue, when it sure as hell wouldn't be on Pete's. _"You must both be very proud,*_ " the microphone waving a little drunkenly as if it's not sure where to point until O'Neill leans in. __

" _*Disgustingly proud,*_ " with such emphasis that it makes Sam laugh and Jackson grin, bring her hand up and press the back of her fingers to his lips. 

" _*Doctor Jackson?*_ "

" _*What Jack said, absolutely.*_ " 

" _*And did you both attend the prizegiving?*_ "

" _*Sure,*_ " O'Neill says, as Sam and Jackson both murmur a _yes_. " _*Sweden was nice. A little chilly.*_ " 

_"*I think we've both been waiting long enough for Sam to get the recognition she deserves,*_ " Jackson adds, with a look that says he's trying to be the adult one. " _*We wouldn't have missed it for the world,*_ " and then he turns those same eyes he has for Sam on O'Neill, so openly that Pete instantly reconsiders his earlier thought. Maybe it's Daniel Jackson who's going to be the Program's poster boy in more ways than one.

" _*Or any other,*_ " O'Neill adds. 

" _*Of course the two of you are quite famous as well…*_ "

" _*They're both amazing,*_ " Sam says, with a smile that suddenly puts every moment of film so far to shame. God, he thinks, she sounds so utterly _happy_. " _*I've been incredibly lucky to be able to have this career, and do this work, and have the best men in the world with me the entire time.*_ "

" _*That sounds like you've been together a long time,*_ " the reporter says, and Pete tries not to think about that, about how many years of footage and photos there might be that no one's seen, that he never knew about, of the three of them exactly like this. " _*Is it true that the three of you actually worked together for a number of years?*_ "

Even on camera, Sam's eyes glitter with amusement. " _*Ah, I'm afraid that's classified information,*_ " she says, and Jackson pantomimes zipping his lips with the hand not still holding hers. 

" _*We'd tell you,*_ " O'Neill adds, " _*but you know. The usual 'we'd have to kill you' clause, and all that.*_ "

He _sounds_ as if he's joking, of course. All the same, Pete suddenly considers that his NDA was probably quite reasonable after all.

Maybe he should send something, he thinks, as the reporter thanks them for their time and congratulates Sam on her Nobel Prize win. Scratch that – he should definitely send something. Flowers, a card, an email; congratulate her. She deserves it.

  


* * *

  


**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the McShep is small, but I couldn't not include them. One day I'll write the actual Queer Nobel Acceptance Road Trip Story.


End file.
